While coffee producing countries generally have an excess of inexpensive labor, when the coffee crop is ripe, much of the crop cannot be harvested because slow hand labor is used and because of time limitations. Presently, coffee berries are picked by hand since there is no effective mechanical harvesting apparatus available.
Fruit pickers which generally employ fingerlike elements to remove fruit from branches are known in the art. In U.S. Pat. No. 1,077,640 to Randall, there is shown a fruit picker with rotatable, parallel cylinders. The cylinders are placed on opposite sides of a branch holding fruit to be harvested, and when they come into contact with the fruit they break the stems of the fruit, thus allowing the fruit to fall from the tree.
In the apparatus shown by U.S. Pat. No. 968,742 to Conceicao, there is disclosed a rake having teeth which comprise freely rotatable smooth cylinders. These cylinders are not driven by a power source and are not connected to rotate together. The rake catches fruit between the teeth and thus pulls it off the branch.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,522,697 to Shaff, a device for picking fruit includes a set of fingers which reciprocates to shake fruit off of a branch.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,164,942 to Middlesworth et al., an apparatus is provided which has a grid of rotating augers for entering a fruit bush and removing the fruit from the branches. These augers are shaped like corkscrews and rotate about parallel axes.
Other fruit picking devices are known in the art, such as those shown by U.S. Pat. No. 3,925,973 to Glover; No. 2,901,879 to Jones; Nos. 1,278,175 and 1,185,110 to LeBaron; and No. 3,452,527 to Steingas et al.